Marco Rubio Reportedly Targets Potential Censorship Schemes Worldwide

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is fighting to ensure American tech companies retain sovereignty over foreign national’s data, Reuters reported Wednesday.

An internal diplomatic Rubio signed criticized the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a prime example of imposing “unnecessarily burdensome data processing restrictions and cross-border data flow requirements,” according to Reuters. The message also said that laws attempting to take control of data from American tech companies would “disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship.”

The cable also reportedly accused the Chinese government of packaging its technology with “restrictive data policies” in order to grow its sphere of influence, as well as its “access to international data for surveillance and strategic leverage,” Reuters reported. Diplomats have been tasked with tracking “proposals to restrict cross-border data flows and supplied talking points promoting the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum,” in order to “support the free flow of data and effective data protection and privacy globally.”

The Forum, established in 2022, states on its website that one of its goals is “facilitating data protection and the free flow of data globally.”

The Trump Administration launched “freedom.gov” in February 2026, reportedly an “online portal” to provide access to banned content in Europe, according to Reuters